


[prologue] it were a grief

by ladynephthyss



Series: yet hanging in the stars [1]
Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Romeo and Juliet Fusion, F/M, Gen, Inspired by Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet References
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-07
Updated: 2021-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-12 22:15:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,812
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29891358
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladynephthyss/pseuds/ladynephthyss
Summary: dreamscape drifting into dots of cold fire, hovering around us. we sink.
Relationships: Gale Hawthorne & Peeta Mellark, Katniss Everdeen & Gale Hawthorne, Katniss Everdeen & Gale Hawthorne & Peeta Mellark, Katniss Everdeen/Peeta Mellark
Series: yet hanging in the stars [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2197797
Comments: 6
Kudos: 7





	[prologue] it were a grief

**Author's Note:**

> [inspired by a re-understanding from catherine about the word star-crossed, dark nights, and gabriel’s oboe by ennio morricone, she is here! thank you to all who are interested in this little folktale! i love you dearly.]  
> note 1: Mondgraben is the local name for district 12. think Appalachia meets norway cold meets the black forest of germany.  
> note 2: acta non verba // "in deeds not words"-dating system in panem  
> note 3: passus // latin measuring of distance; lit. "a thousand paces"  
> note 4: first and foremost, so to:   
> @need-not  
> @hawtnip  
> @jjeanmorreau  
> @offarawaysnfuturedays-inmydreams   
> thank you to all of your wonderful folks who helped little beginner me with the german in yet hanging in the stars. it means the world that you took the time to help me out with context, mistakes, and just better wording. it’s helping me bring this fic to life and i couldn’t have done it without you.   
> all credit with german...i suppose, correct-ness goes towards these wonderful individuals! i am but a scribe writing down their knowledge.   
> danke!

_Panem, 766 acta non verba_

Winter is spiteful. 

The snow had been falling since the last Reaping. Heavy and thick. But the stillness that presided in snowfall was enough to cut teeth upon, the bleak midwinter stretching out as long as the nights it harbored. This year, not that anyone really knew the year; it was biting and empty. Time had no real set of circumstances outside of the Games. Over 650 years of the ritual left Panem’s districts as cold and bitter as their winters. Stripped bare. Peeta’s family, or that which was left of it, did little to soothe the aching of his heart. Brothers, off and married, in poverty (though not starving, as he would always be reminded) did not speak to him. In the last turning of fall, his father, sick with grief over his mother’s passing, hung himself from the attic rafters of their ramshackle home. She had died with blood pooling between her thighs, gaze glassy and white as the baby was taken from her arms. The girl she always wanted, dead only four days later. 

Peeta did not even raise his head. Suspended between the nastiness of life and the meanness of the dead, he couldn’t get into the idea of living life or leaving it. Let alone dealing with two blood relations that wanted nothing to do with him. So he took what little energy he had and put that into pondering color. 

He makes a friend out of a young girl who lived near the first posting of the fence. The same skirt and shirt almost every day, bare feet more often than not. 

“Bring in a little lavender, if you got any,” he would say. “Pink, if you don’t.” 

And Aviva would oblige him with anything from a few clusters beyond the fence to her own tongue if he wanted. Winter in 12 was difficult for anyone, but even more so if you wanted color. Peeta never has the courage to go beyond the fence anymore, and now, in the turning days of his growing self, he had no energy for such notions. The sky provided the only drama. But counting on such a spectacle in such a place as 12 was reckless indeed. So he does the best he can, stripping down the bakery for one person. Aviva always watches from different corners, offering small bits of opinion here and there, always humming as he works. She would never take her eyes off him. Kneading out dough as soft as a cloud or breaking sticks for kindling in the oven, Peeta is licked, tasted, eaten by the night pools of Aviva’s eyes. Like storm clouds she hovers, never leaving his presence until the day had ceased or she was directly told. She n lamplight, or the flicking of an open flame, their two shadows cross like black swords on the ceiling. The walls. The creaking floorboards. 

Peeta preps and bakes and waits for what little customers would show, ignoring another broken jar or crack in the window. The shutters rattle, but nothing else moves in the bakery. 

“You must be stopping it,” he says, degassing the newest proof. 

Aviva swings her feet back and forth from her place on the stool. “Doubt it.” 

“Then why doesn't it come? For a baby it throws a powerful racket.” 

“You forgot how little it was. Taken from her mother, four days on the other side. Too little to understand. Maybe,” she sinks her teeth into her bottom lip, “maybe it's because she doesn't want to understand.” A beat. Wie hieß sie?” 

“Don’t remember.” 

“You say that cause it’s all you let yourself remember.” Aviva says, clipped. 

Truth was, Peeta works as hard as he can to remember close to nothing. Safer that way. But his brain is devious. Early mornings in the bakery, measuring ingredients and taking out starters. He’ll slice his finger. He’ll press a towel to it, and then his mother is humming , standing in the corner fisting the blood stained fabric of her nightgown. Cleaning out the storage, and his father is whistling, rope around his neck tied up to where the light ought to be. The baby he never sees, only feels her presence. She makes an awful noise. 

It’s a bit better than the silence of his own thoughts. 

Aviva jumps down from her place on the stool, smoothing her old skirt. Black like the evening. “I’ll bring rosemary tomorrow,” she says , and vanishes outside into the chill air. He could picture her crouched near the frosty earth, lithe fingers searching for those little resilient herbs hidden just out of casual glance. 

The waste bin will mold if he leaves it any longer, and the sky has started to open in a winter downpour. Aviva took the burnt sourdough and tossed it into the bag, a mistake, he first thinks, but it’s not salvageable enough for anything else. 

The pigs, dotted coats. Squealing little ones with ravenous mouths to thick, swollen nipples in the shed. Scrambling over their mother like invading insects. The bigger ones are outside, big enough to share body heat. Rain and mud and shit. He holds the bread under one arm, dumps the waste in the trough. 

There’s a girl under the tree. She’s dead. 

His first thought is to go inside. Someone else would take her. By God, an animal would take her sooner. Half starved wolves came through all the time, lured from the forest to the populated areas, picking off those who didn’t have the strength or the sense to die in their own homes. 

There’s a girl under the tree. She moves. 

His second thought is to watch. She’s small, looks like a child, though that’s probably more due to near starvation than anything else. Dark skin, long black hair plastered to her face by the growing downpour of rain. The sweater she wears is essentially tattered, and beyond the sheet, he can see the rattling of a cough. If that didn’t kill her, the cold would. It might be easier. He knew it was like falling asleep eventually. 

There is a girl under the tree. She looks at him. 

His third thought is to move closer. Tests the weight of bread under his arm. I know you. Something in his head says. By God, by God, by God, don’t I know you? 

He tosses it. It lands by her feet. He gives the dying girl some semblance of respect, going back inside and leaving her to choke down some pieces of half burnt bread. 

There’s a girl. She’s gone. 

His fourth thought, falling asleep that night is two braids, his five year old legs, endless sky. 

_Katniss_. 

_eight years later_

_Mondgraben, 774 acta non verba_

The world is coming up from the black to float on the soothing waves of the blue hour. I wake, cold, as always, and secure the fur blankets (a lucky hunt of wolves) over my sister. She shifts just a bit in sleep before settling back into dreams, tawny skin catching the dim light of a still lit kerosene lamp by the floor. 

Brutus, iridescent blue eyes and dark fur, lifts his head from near the fire pit. Electra whines in her sleep, clipped black ear twitching. She’s nearly deaf in one ear, and her brother half blind in one eye. They’ll live for decades, thanks to my mother. Ancient things. 

Out of the bedroom from my mother’s wolves, to find her, lady of us all, sitting in that old rocking chair with a drop spindle. Turning and turning. Wordlessly, in remnants of my father’s customs, I touch her feet and smooth my hand over my head. Just as silent, she sets her spindle aside and lets me climb into her lap. 

My mother is tall, the same height as my late father. One of the many reasons he wished to marry her, enough to ask her five times. _You’re a tree_ , he had said, _catching lightning_. I guess it stuck. Tall and strong (as strong as one could be in a place like this), long blonde hair. Pale like the original inhabitants of this land, not movers like my father’s folk. I got my movement from him. Restless. 

“Go back to sleep,” she murmurs, fingers curling into my hair. I shake my head, press my face into the curve of her neck. She smells cold and a bit earthy. 

“You’re not sleeping,” I counter, and I feel her laugh, a little too tired. 

“I never sleep. I haven’t slept since you and your sister were tumbling inside of me. Today of all days requires some vigilance.” 

That pains me. The Reaping. Hundreds and hundreds of years, of offerings, of chances and death. Always death. 

“Prim-” I start, and feel a bit choked. “Her blood-” 

“I know. We were lucky it took this long.” 

Of course it had. Asides from her time away, when cobwebs invaded her mind and almost took her down to the dark with my father, my mother had done her best to keep us fed just enough. Herbal remedies to stop our first blood as long as possible. First blood meant first Reaping. I don’t know why. Thanks to my mother, my sheets were stained at only 17, or just near it. My sister, we had prayed to Them to let her reach 17. Not so lucky. 

The Capitol craved young blood. That’s why it ended at 21, why the further away you were meant the more times your name was put. Less chance of survival. They don’t care about a victor. Not really. There was a way around it. Tesserae gave a swap. Took my name and inserted it for her number of times. Worth it beyond anything else. 

My mother looks outside, the array of silver in her ears catching the light light, runes of dark ink tattooed to her skin. Lady of Wolves they called her. Witch in less favorable circles. I trace a symbol on the back of her hand. Follow the path of her neck, symbols at her throat, over the swell of her left breast, and unseen. Ribcage. Words of my father’s folk. _Sanskrit_. Full in my mouth. I like the word. 

“They’ll be up soon. Go and catch the morning,” she says, and smirks. Taps my nose hoop with a finger, small little silver thing. My father’s sister. “I gave him rosemary and cheese to make your favorite. The pork is on the table.” I scramble off her lap, leave, come back, and press my forehead to hers. Centering. Always centering before going out to the world. 

“Dress _properly_. I’m not lining your boots for the eighth time,” she laughs and kisses my cheek. My reply in her native tongue gets me a swat on the behind. “And take Brutus with you!” 

Our house, more like a little, tattered cabin, is at the edge of the Seam. I’ve only got to pass a few gates to reach the meadow. Separating the grassy field from my beloved woods is a giant chainlink, electrified fence that runs all around the perimeter with barbed wire loops. Technically, it’s supposed to be electrified twenty four hours a day, seven days a week. A deterrent to the predators who lurk outside in the woods- wild dogs, mountain lions, bears. At least it was long ago. We’ve had to make due in these wildlands, mountains and cold and forest, with fire and gases mined deep in the earth. 

Children learn from birth: keep from the cold and keep from the woods. 

If my father graced me with his looks and restlessness, my stubbornness and streak for anything different came from my mother. I was a stickler for safety, especially where Prim was involved, but when it came to them…

I duck underneath the fence, hold the gap a bit wider to let Brutus through, our wild thing giving a huff of annoyance, breath fogging the cold air. He bounds ahead of me, knowing we’re off to check traps first before any main event. Going further into the woods. The Reaping isn’t until tonight, but the way would be filled with preparations, nothing of joy. Faith, perhaps. 

There’s a rustle, and Brutus knows well enough to stay still as I immediately notch my arrow. The nose of a deer. Under my breath I mutter a moment of thanks to Them and to the animal for letting itself in my sight. Nosing the cold earth. A few more steps…

“And here we find the huntress!” 

My arrow lets fly...into the bushes. My possible kill giving a start and disappearing. Anger and annoyance boil inside of me and I whirl around. 

“Scheiße!” I spit, and tackle him to the ground. Peeta Mellark is howling with laughter, and trying to protect his face from my assault, more in frustration than actual rage. 

Stronger arms wrap around my middle and force me back, and it’s then my teeth snap inches from Gale Hawthorne’s nose as I wriggle around. He grins, wolfish. 

“Come on, Catnip, it’s one little deer.” 

“It’s one deer that’s enough to keep us for at least two weeks,” I shove at him. A beat of silence and I rub my hand over my face. “Can someone at least get my arrow?” 

Peeta obliges, and I punch his arm for good measure before giving a sound of protest at Gale rummaging through my hunting bag. 

“You’ve got-is this salted pork?” he pulls out the bundle and when I try to snatch it back, he uses height to his advantage, holding it above his head. 

“Give it!” 

He laughs. “At least we know that in our lovely little Mondgraben, we’re a little bit further away from starving in safety. Peeta, sag ihr, dass ich Recht habe!”

“For goodness-Peeta!” I shout, just as he comes back with my arrow, watching the scene and gives a snort of amusement. 

“I see nothing. But if you give me the bow I can try aiming for his hand.” 

That gets Gale to hand me my parcel, breakfast for the three of us, and nearly barrel his friend over before Peeta cries out, holding something above his head as a peace offering. 

“Hey, hey, _hey_! You tackle me and we lose the main event.” 

Gale lets him go, ruffles his hair for good measure as Peeta holds out the bundle of white flowers, a staining center like black ink. The grins on our faces say plenty enough. 

“Food first,” I decide. Brutus barks, impatient and bounds over to Gale for pets as the four of us head deeper still. 

Peeta has gotten sugar, actual sugar cubes. Talking of shipments during preparation, whereabouts of Gale’s siblings. He’s always minding other people. I wish I could. Gale’s fingers are braiding my hair, so long it’s past my waist, leather tie between his teeth, making his replies a bit muffled as I take another bite of cheese bread and salted pork. 

“Well, Posie’s not going to divorce him, you know why?” 

“Why?” Peeta asks, and I give a snort, muffled by food in my mouth. 

“Good farm,” I say. Swallow. “And a good fuc-” 

Gale clamps a hand over my mouth. I bite his hand immediately, and it’s only a moment before he tackles me, wrestling on the ground like wolf cubs before Peeta sighs loudly. 

“I guess this is all for me then.” 

That stops us. My hand on Gale’s chest, thundering heart, having won. “In your dreams.” 

Brutus yawns, stretching and arching his back as we sit in our circle, this meadow surrounded by blue and the growing morning. We’re warm, warmer still with what we’ll be feeling. The petals first. Three underneath my tongue. Pop in the sugar cube and then the main event, the little black pod, soft as a berry, bursting on my tongue. 

The world goes blue. Then white. Then shadows. And then nothing for a long moment. The nothing was the worst, because it was like the deep dark that my father never emerged from, why I never tasted the moon alone. Ever the brother, Gale’s fumbling fingers guide my head to his lap, muttering something I don’t understand. 

Time hiccups. 

The meadow balloons into view and laughter is leaving my throat, high and breathy. Peeta lifts his head, trying unsuccessfully to take a bite of salted pork, an action I and my too large pupils find hilarious. Crawl on hands and knees. 

“Hit me.” 

He blinks, slow and stupid. A stupid smile for a stupid boy. 

“Catnip.” Was I talking to Gale? Myself?

“Hit me,” I giggle. “Seriously, I can’t feel anything!” Like some creature, I strike my hand across the baker’s face. He’s stunned, and touches his cheek. Peeta pulls his hand away, stares at it, and bursts into laughter. 

“Scheiße, du hast Recht!” And I’m bowled over on the ground because his hand connects to my cheek. Gale is howling with laughter before Peeta tackles him, hitting him with his fists, and he laughs and laughs and laughs. 

“Do it! Do it again.” Gale obliges, and I blow a raspberry. “Harder!” Again. “ _Harder_!”

My eyes see nothing but sky. Hear nothing but laughter. 

_Do it! Harder! Murder me. Murder me, murder me, murder me!_

Taste sugar and sorrow on my tongue. 

I wake, breath on my neck. Peeta’s face tucked. Gale’s arm around my waist. We have fallen further than we thought. In the space between. 

Time hiccups. 

“We could do it, you know.” Gale says. The eyes of wolves watch us from all sides, just beyond the trees of the meadow, glowing golden orbs held in pitch black. Only the gentle, pulsing blue of the meadow is our only light. 

“Do what?” Peeta asks.

I play with a tuft of glowing grass. Gale sighs. 

“Run off. Leave the Districts. Head for the woods. They don’t care about us after 21. We’re invisible, you guys.” 

“None of us are invisible, Gale” I say, and it’s a bit harsher than I mean it, but I know he knows what I’m trying today. 

“Besides, you’re out of the cuff,” Peeta says, drawing up a knee to rest his chin. “We’ve got, what? 3 more years. Katniss already has Tesserae-” 

“I’m not stupid, Mellark.” Gale snaps and the baker opens his mouth to retort. 

“ _Aey_!” My tone is sharp like a wolf snarl., “Hört auf!” They’re silenced. No arguments. Not today of all days. A sigh. “It will be fine, guys. By Their Grace.” 

“I bless the moon for that,” Gale mutters, and we fall back to grass, tall and blowing now with a single wave of my hand. Two arms around my waist. Peeta’s humming something, an old song, and Gale noses my hair before speaking. 

“Well, that’s not entirely fair.” 

A sigh. “What?”

“You two have your own little act of rebellion. Betrothal.” 

Peeta lets out a loud laugh, and those blue eyes look over to me. Neither of us had really asked, and nothing of marriage was to happen until after the cutoff of Reaping. Not even a whisper. But somewhere between eating an apple in spring and my bloodstained hands gutting a turkey, the thought had floated between us. 

_Would you want to?_ I had asked, thudding heart. His fingers shook a bit with the knife as he crouched beside me.

_I wouldn’t want anyone else._

That ought to have been it, but traditions here in District 12, our Mondgraben are too dark and too wild for such simple things. We took Gale, our shared brother, to the woods, had him scatter the bones on the first full moon of the month. His blade across mine and Peeta’s thumbs, our pads smearing crimson on the other’s lips, tasting. This was only for betrothal, some secret thing. Not like marriage. Not yet. In some ways, old ways, this was deeper. 

“Yes,” Peeta says softly. Gale reaches over and plays with his fingers. It was a little bit of hope, something to bind us. Something we wanted, more than anything. 

“What do you want?” I whisper, looking up at the dark sky. 

Peeta and Gale look at each other. “Stars.” 

I close my eyes and exhale. Dreamscape drifting into dots of cold fire, hovering around us. We sink. 

***

“Such rough games,” my mother murmurs. My lip, slightly split, stings as she runs the pad of her thumb over it. I can hear Prim, some rattling of plates. Trying to eat something before the events of tonight. Earlier than expected. The sun never really stays here in 12, not for long. My adventures to some other plane with those boys of mine left me dirt stained and dizzy. My mother didn’t mind. She had fed Peeta and Gale more than enough times in the years of our companionship. 

She grips my chin gently and peers at my eyes. Pupils like a black full moon. 

“Prim!” she calls over her shoulder, hands reaching behind me and undoing my braid without turning me, like some magic. 

“Ja?” 

“A bath. Before evening comes.” Smirks at me. “Lavender?” 

With the drowsy ease of a housecat, still held on the fringes of moonflower, I brush my nose against hers. 

“Cold,” I say. 

I’m a fumbling mess with my clothes, enough that my mother has to maneuver my shirt over my head. I don’t mind her seeing me like this. We had other things to worry about than any supposed shame of nakedness. 

“Hot,” I murmur, and she clicks her tongue. Prim holds Buttercup by the washroom doorway. Orange thing that hisses at me. I bare my teeth. Moonflower has a way of heating the bones. 

“Woozy,” Prim sing-songs and Buttercup jumps from her arms in favor of the windowsill, watching the stillness of outside. Electra pads in before my mother gives a sharp, high noise that has her whining. 

“Let her stay,” I murmur, my eyes slipping closed. “Make sure nothing steals me away.” 

“I think something has stolen you away already,” Prim snorts, and ducks when I manage to throw a towel at her, my mother fumbling with socks and bathwater. “You aren’t supposed to, you know. Not before the Reaping.” 

“Those were the old days,” my mother says, pouring some sweet smelling oil into the old white tub, a rare gem in a place like this. “They make a machine out of it now. Bloodshed no better. But for future reference, if you want to touch the moon,” she pats my cheek and helps me in, “let me know first.” 

“I’ll keep her.” Prim says, and my little dove sinks down on a stool, skirts like brown lily pads, buoyant. Sets a comb to her long hair, lighter than mine. She has my mother’s features in so many ways. A gentleness I craved. 

My mother clicks her tongue at Electra who gives a shake and huff, padding out. I sink down. It’s cold, or feels cold anyway. I liked the cold. Liked the sleep it gave me. 

_Day’s tired me with light._ Prim’s voice cuts the silence, the reflection of water. Shimmering light. Like a dream, my voice joins her in harmony. 

_Over my head_

_In leaves grown deep,_

_Sings the young nightingale._

Our mother’s songs had a way of burrowing inside of us, resting in our bones before taking flight like startled birds in the worst of times. It centered me. Centered us both. Two times in the round. I focus on the weightiness of this tub, coolness, slowing my heartbeat. She had no chances, as little as possible at least. I would rather die than let them take her. My Prim. My dove. My life. 

She’s weaving lavender into her hair with careful fingers. 

_It only sings of love there_

I’m counting the minutes. Then seconds. Then nothing at all. And for a moment there is nothing but our song, the water. No moon. No Games. Falling. Floating. _It only sings of love there._

The last refrain is a ghost on my lips, fingers letting go of the edge of the tub. 

_I hear it in my sleep._

I slip under.

***

Would there be water in the place we were to go? Could I drown myself, a single movement? Pockets full of stones, if there were any. Sink down into the deep and let him live. 

_God, let him live,_ I pray. _Let my boy live._

Blood is blooming inside of my mouth. My teeth release the soft, pink flesh of my tongue and I do my best to focus on Peeta’s fingers tracing up and down my knuckles. I’ve always been jealous of his hands, softer than my own. No calluses from years of hunting. Soft things, never sharp objects. We haven’t spoken. Certainly from fear. Maybe the cold night outside. 

The two of us, 18, held in May and February. Culled rather than Reaped. Full of blood and ready for slaughter like sheep. It always happened at night, when the moon was high. No light, no chance of warmth and hope from the sun. 

The Justice Building has rooms we’ve never seen before. Old and lush interiors with warm light from lamps, a fireplace with oak mantle. Couches and armchairs. A landscape portrait of the sea, dark and twisting. It’s been 20 minutes of waiting, according to the clock on the wall. The Peacekeepers were more equipped for the wealthier districts, not for some half wild space as 12, where citizens knew only cold and coal. Ice and dust in bones, and darkness stays. The crowd is always rowdy, always grieving. Something breaks beyond the door. They won’t shoot, our Blessed Lady makes sure of that. No blood until the Games. The noise of the crowd like a distant sea. 

I had given instructions to my family. Understanding. They can get by, if they are careful, on selling the milk and cheese from her goat. Along with the small apothecary business my mother runs for the people in the Seam. Gale will come by every Saturday and Sunday to check in, as well as to help her learn how to trap small things. 

Prim will not be able to hunt for larger game. There’s a sensitivity in her when it comes to animals, but she’s smart, and recognizes the importance of how things are going to change from now on. School is an absolute, no exceptions. 

“Besides,” I had said with a small smile, “I don’t want to come back rich with a sister who can’t do her maths.” 

That got me a tearful giggle from her, and I kissed the tip of her nose. 

Her words, twisting my stomach. My focus was on her instead of my boy with the bread, trying to ignore the truth of the matter. His chances. _I know you can win, Katniss! You’re fast and smart. You know what to do._

The door creaks open. Peeta’s head snaps up, and I follow his gaze, frowning a bit before recognizing the intruder. The step of boots, leaning a bit too much to the right. 

Gale Hawthorne raises a finger to his lips as he shuts the door. 

This was grounds for bloodshed. Too many incidents of poison being slipped into anxious hands, a tribute or two or a dozen found dead on the train, in their Capitol beds, a grove of trees in the arena. Quiet, bloodless deaths. Not right, not by the Capitol’s standards. 

No one was to visit the reaped, save for immediate family, and that was in the presence of Peacekeepers. That had already occurred, Prim with her arms too tight around my waist. My mother stroked Preeta’s hair, pressing promises and prayers to his forehead. Lastly to me, gripping my hands, our foreheads together. 

“Take my strength,” she says. No, _wills_ into existence. I stiffen and she shakes her head. “Don’t fight it. You aren’t like that. If your time comes, you will be with Them.” 

I nod and I can’t speak what I want to speak. Don’t go. Don’t disappear. Not again. 

“Mama-”

“I love you more than my own breath. Whatever happens, you remember that.” 

“Fight.” I whimper and she nods. Traces a pattern on my fingertips, a kiss to my forehead, and is gone. 

Now we stand, a triangle of loyalty and sorrow. His eyes lined with the black customary of his family, the whites puffy and red, close to bursting with tears. Gale takes in a shuddering breath, and unfolds an old handkerchief. Two pins, golden. A gleaming circle, an arrow running through it. The second, a bird in flight. Meant to fit together at one point or another. 

“I-I found it in the market,” he says, voice soft. I try to speak but I can’t, something dead rising in my throat and cutting my voice off. Gale takes the circle, pins it to Peeta’s front. “The man who sold it to me said it came from a time where men used to worship the sun,” The bird to my dress. “And stars.” 

He swallows, and my heart gives a painful jerk. “Ich werde-''

He can’t speak what I know he’ll say. Our promise. Our forbidden words of a forbidden language. Nothing but English and The Lady’s Tongue. But some things, whispers of history, couldn’t stay buried. Words held by people who came across the ocean. They said that here, in the south of whatever this land used to be called, they spoke German. Funny and thick. _Ich, ich, ich._ A contrast to our accents. _I, I, I_. 

_I’ll always think of us as the sun._

“Gale-” Peeta’s voice breaks. 

The older of us both shakes his head. “And if it comes, I’ll bury you among the stars.” 

He holds Peeta first, a small whimper escaping the young baker, face pressed into his shoulder.. I don’t cry. I don’t let myself , but the way my fingers curl into my friend’s, my _brother’s_ shirt front says enough. 

“You fight, klar?” Releases me and presses our foreheads together, grasping both mine and Peeta’s hands. “Anything you can find, a rock, a knife, a branch. _You look out for each other_.” 

We will. We have been. Since we were both 13 years old. A mishap of apples and hunting. It was Gale who carried Peeta on his back, baker with a twisted ankle, me eating his basket full of apples, making both of them laugh the whole way. We didn’t find a turkey. Maybe something else. 

“Es ist nur ein Spiel” My voice doesn’t sound like my own. _It’s only a game._ Only people. Only girls and boys like us.

“We’ll fight.” Peeta says. “Das verspreche Ich dir”” 

A crushing hug, the two of us against him. “I wish you victory. In life or death. A bruising kiss to the tops of our heads, hurried promises to take care of family. 

“Ich liebe dich,” he whispers. And it’s like I’m watching the world come to an end when he leaves. 

Then we are alone, a piece of the sun missing from us both. 

The station, illuminated with lights on tall, steel rods, is crowded with reporters and flashing bulbs, and it’s all too bright. Too much. A headache is starting to form in the base of my skull. Peeta’s eyes are bloodshot. I know it’s of sorrow, but it’s a strategy all the same. He’s spent too many years with me in the woods not to know how to keep oneself unseen. The Games are its own kind of hunting territory and it works to appear weak and frightened, to reassure the others that he is easily dealt with. Come out fighting. An older victor from 7, Johanna Mason, won her Games the same way. Pretended to be a weak, sniveling thing, and then bludgeoned her final opponent with nothing but a heavy rock. For her it was clever. But Peeta ? The baker who, despite his wrestling and stokyness, I know to most looks to be 120 plus pounds soaking wet, even with him having enough to eat and hauling bread trays here and there. What will that give him? 

Finally, we are allowed inside the main chambers and the doors close behind us. The train starts to move at once. 

The speed of this enormous thing, like a silver bullet, catches us both off guard for a few minutes. Neither of us have been on a real train before. From what little we learned of Capitol mechanics in school, this thing can go up to speeds that average 321 mille passus per hour. We’ll arrive in a little less than two days. 

Outside, the land is nothing but green forest tinged with ice. It’s never warm up here, even in summer. The disasters of the Dark Days did well to make sure of that. Even hundreds of years ago, people mined. We harvest gases and other minerals asides from coal, the scent and stain of it never washing out no matter how many times we dunked ourselves underneath freezing spots in the ice. It always lingered, like some ghost. 

I don’t know the name of the place District 12 once was, but the language of people long ago still lingers. A small act of rebellion in our otherwise abysmal lives. Any account of history has either been taken away or no one has bothered to tell us. And why should they? School is more of a formality than anything else. More often than not boys and girls drop out to help their families, break ice in the early morning hours, clean wood, repair rundown fences. All with fingers bleeding, blue, or both. 

I curl my feet up onto the velvet seating, rest my chin on my arms. Peeta rubs his eyes, and the words, this old song, float to my mind, spilling from me. I’m not a good singer, not like my father. But it’s a comfort to Peeta, a comfort to us both in the face of certain death. A lullaby, one my father could never understand why my mother would sing such a thing, but she got her way. He loved her enough to let her do as she pleased. 

_Our death is in the cool of night,_

_Our life is in the pool of day._

_The darkness glows, I’m drowning,_

My voice breaks. His fingers begin to undo my long braid. I take in a shuddering breath. Focus on the black pines outside, mountains. Home. Never again. 

_Over my head in leaves grown deep,_

_Sings the young nightingale._

His nose presses into my shoulder, arms around me as some ghost makes my body start to shake. Reaches forth and entwines our fingers. Trees, dark against the sky. 

_It only sings of love there._

They blur before my eyes, green at barren tracks. 

_I hear it in my sleep._

**Author's Note:**

> [thank you for reading! leave a comment if you so desire and come chat to me on tumblr under the same username!]


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